Herb Gilmore, who is serving his second term on the planning commission, cut the tree Tuesday, saying it would pose a safety hazard because repairs to his driveway would require him to cut some of its roots.

The planning commission, a board of 10 citizen volunteers, listens to the pleas of rezoning applicants and neighbors, before advising county commissioners whether to approve proposed developments.

Under pressure from the citizen Community Tree Council, Athens-Clarke commissioners voted last year to build a special sidewalk around Gilmore's tree and two other oaks on Old West Broad Street to make sure that construction didn't damage the trees.

The century-old oaks shade most of the block between King Avenue and Sunset Terrace, and, while their roots have grown onto the public right-of-way, the trees stand on private property.

Tree preservationists and county officials said they were disappointed to lose the tree - though all admitted Gilmore had the right to cut it down.

"The Community Tree Council really spoke up to protect those trees during construction," said Roger Cauthen, administrator of the local government's Landscape Management Division, the department that maintains public greenspace and advises the citizen tree council.

"I think they saw the value of those trees," Cauthen said. "You can't recreate that level of shade and architectural impact for a number of years.

"But the tree was on private property, and the owner had a right to cut it."

There's no law in Athens-Clarke County forbidding the cutting of exceptional trees. The zoning code defines "heritage trees" - ones that are at least 150 years old and a certain size or that are historic or of unusual species - but doesn't require that they be protected. Though Cauthen couldn't say for sure how old or large the tree was, he estimated that it probably wouldn't meet the standards for a heritage tree, anyway.

"The (sidewalk) design has nothing to do with that tree coming down," Gilmore said. "I have a great deal of respect for that tree; I love that tree."

But the tree's roots had grown under his driveway and to cut them would kill the tree, an arborist told Gilmore. It was too expensive and risky to try to keep the tree, Gilmore said.

"If I cut out those roots, I'd create a public hazard," he said. "I refuse to be party to putting the public at risk to save one tree."

In the year since county engineers and tree preservationists settled on a sidewalk design, Gilmore refused to give a construction easement, county staff said, and workers instead built two segments of sidewalk with a gap in front of Gilmore's oak.

Pedestrians already had worn a trail between the trees' gnarled roots and the curb, but the foot between the tree and the curb wasn't wide enough to lay a standard concrete walkway. In the end, designers decided to cover the trees' roots with a foot or so of gravel, build a small retaining wall at the street and lay a sidewalk on top - a solution that increased the project cost by about $10,000, engineers estimated.

Now that the tree is no longer an issue, county engineers will review the project and consider how to proceed to connect the finished segments, according to David Clark, director of Transportation and Public Works.

That's important to Commissioner George Maxwell, who has lobbied his colleagues on the county commission for months to see the sidewalk finished.

"I'm going to push for (county staff) to go back out there and finish the sidewalk," Maxwell said. "It's stupid to have two ends of a sidewalk that don't meet."